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Zeb overheard this conversation and determined to profit by it.
He felt sore, both physically and mentally.
He felt that his father had not kept to the meaning of his oath, and had evaded it by kicking instead of striking, which to Zeb was just as bad.
"I might just as well have let him hit me," he soliloquized; "he laughs now; perhaps he will not when I am through."
He ran, and none could go faster when he liked to exert himself, and did not rest until he was in sight of the Mountain Boys' camp.
Then he halted.
He needed to be cool.
"Zebedee, my boy, now you can make or mar your life. Which are you going to do?"
He thought for a moment and chuckled to himself as he defined, mentally, his plan of action.
Peleg Sunderland was in command in the absence of the colonel and Capt.
Baker, and to him Zeb asked to be conducted.
But the sentinel refused.
"You haven't got the word, and I will not let anyone pa.s.s; no, not even the colonel himself without it."
"But I have important news."
"Of course you have."
"You do not believe me?"
"Yes, I do. I know all you can tell me, so there!"
"Have you anyone here called Eben Pike?"
"Perhaps we have, perhaps we haven't."
"Do not be sa.s.sy or----"
"You'll march away from this or I'll shoot; them's my orders."
Zeb saw that the man would not allow him to pa.s.s, and he was at his wits' end to know what to do.
As good fortune would have it, who should pa.s.s but Eben.
"Eben, I want you."
"Is that you, Zeb?"
"It is."
"What do you want?"
"You."
"What for?"
"Come here and I will tell you."
The sentry warned Eben not to pa.s.s out of the lines, but the young scout took no notice.
"Well, what is it?"
"Come a little farther away and I will tell you."
Eben knew not what fear was, though that was saying a great deal. One of the kings of Spain once sent for a man who was heard to say that he did not know the meaning of fear.
"My good man," said the king, "they tell me that you were never afraid."
"That is true, your majesty."
"And you do not know what fear is?"
"That also was true."
"Did you ever put your hand into a wasps' nest?"
"No, your majesty."
"Then never again say you do not know what fear is."
Eben might find something of which he would be afraid, but he had not done so up to that time.
When the two boys had got some distance away, Eben asked:
"Well, what have you to tell me?"
"Where is Col. Ethan Allen?"
"I do not know."
"Where is Capt. Baker?"
"I do not know."
"I do."
"Well, what of that?"
"When I last saw them they had some good strong cords bound round their limbs, and a Yorker was holding a gun at their heads."
